The Plastic Magician (A Paper Magician Novel)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  The door shut behind her, giving her a start. Mr. Hemsley had departed. The sitting room suddenly looked rather large.

  “Um, hi,” she said, tucking waves of hair behind her ears. The locks popped back out again. Any space behind her ears was taken up by the arms of her glasses. Her heart beat a little too fast, and she tried to shush it, but her body didn’t obey her the way plastic or machines did. Bother.

  “Forgive me for not writing ahead,” he said, wringing the edge of a hat in his hands. She’d never seen him wear a hat. Why would someone with hair as cheerful as his ever want to cover it with a hat? She almost said as much, but Bennet continued, “I knew you studied under Praff, so it wasn’t hard to find you. Though I could have sent a bird.”

  A mail bird, he meant. Folders could Fold paper into all sorts of creatures and send them off into the world. Complex spells, those mail birds, but useless in bad weather.

  “Oh no, it’s no trouble.” To be honest, when she went to the hospital for her volunteer hours and Bennet wasn’t there, she was disappointed. Not that Ethel wasn’t pleasant company. Quite the opposite. She was probably the best friend Alvie had in London so far, and they hardly knew each other. The thought made Alvie a little homesick. She’d left twenty years’ worth of socializing behind her. Now she had to start anew without the excuse of school or neighborhood parties to prompt mingling.

  Bennet smiled. “I’m glad.”

  “I mean, wouldn’t it be a bother for you? It’s out of the way. You must really like trains.”

  Bennet laughed. “I don’t mind them, though I came in my mentor’s auto.”

  “Really?” Alvie perked up like a tulip in the morning sun. “You drive?”

  “I do.”

  She took several steps forward, closing the yawning gap between them. “What sort of auto does he have?”

  “He owns a couple; I brought the Benz.”

  “A Benz?” Alvie clapped her hands together. “Really? Here?”

  His hands loosened on his hat. “Outside, yes.”

  Her muscles grew antsy. “Oh, Bennet, could I see it? Would you mind terribly?”

  He grinned. “Not at all. Lead the way—I’m not sure I remember how to get back to the drive.”

  Alvie resisted jumping with glee and hurried from the sitting room, Bennet behind her. She found the stairs and took them down to the main hall.

  “Does Magician Bailey have a large house? That was his name, right?” she asked as they moved toward the vestibule.

  “He does, yes. More modern in design, fewer servants. He’s strange that way.”

  Alvie glanced to his face. She liked his profile. “Is he nice?”

  Bennet snorted. “He’s very . . . competent.”

  That was an evasion if Alvie had ever heard one. She dropped the subject.

  Sure enough, a 1901 Benz sat out on the drive, beautifully framed by a background of yellowing autumn trees. It was white, with a covered engine and sleek fenders and a leather—no, that was Sipered rubber—top that lay over the back like an accordion. A built-in spell would bring up the roof in case of rain. It boasted leather covers on the steering wheel and clutch. All the exposed metal was polished, even the spark and throttle lever rods.

  Alvie approached it slowly and touched the Gaffer headlamps. “This . . . is the most beautiful automobile I’ve ever seen.”

  “Would you like a ride?”

  “I’d like to see the engine!” She whirled around. “May I see the engine?” The engine was in the front rather than the back. Intriguing.

  He hesitated a moment. “Sure.”

  Alvie squealed. Bennet moved to lift the hood, but Alvie knew where the latch was and did it herself. A marvel of machinery winked back at her. The radiator was the smallest she’d ever seen in an automobile. It and the fan were pushed against the front, above the breather pipe and commutator. The pipes, the crankcases, the combustion chamber—they were all set up for optimum efficiency. And none of it was enchanted. Pure technology.

  She leaned over the radiator filler flange and pushed her hands into the engine, feeling for the carburetor.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” she began, wiggling her hands free and finding footing on the ground, “but I’d love to see this thing strewn out on the lawn.”

  “What?”

  “It’s like a puzzle. Take it apart, put it back together.”

  “Ah.” Bennet nodded. “I understand the sentiment, though I have a feeling your expertise surpasses my own. You surprise me, Alvie. Oh dear, your hands.”

  Alvie glanced down. Smears of black and brown covered her fingers and one of her wrists. She crouched and wiped them on the grass just as Bennet fetched a handkerchief.

  “Oh, sorry.” She lifted her hands up. Clean enough. “That wasn’t very ladylike of me.”

  He laughed. “I don’t mind.”

  “But I would enjoy a drive. See how she works.” Her thoughts spun with automobile organs. Her papa would be so jealous when she told him.

  “Of course. Though I did come here with a purpose, Alvie.”

  She blinked. Stepped away from the automobile as though it had transformed into a giant spider. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even ask after that. You see, I don’t have anything solid to show you for Ethel yet, but when we do, there will have to be a fitting, and I’ll—”

  “You’re kind to think of her, really.” Bennet was wringing his hat again. He’d ruin it, doing that. “But I’m not here on behalf of Ethel. You see . . .” His neck reddened just a bit, which was funny, since it was a cool day. The sky was more cloud than blue, as it often was in England. “Well, I was wondering if you’d like to spend an afternoon at Green Park with me tomorrow. A picnic of sorts. I can even take you in this, if you’d like.”

  He gestured to the automobile, but Alvie’s gaze was vacuum-formed to his face. She knew her mouth was gaping, but she couldn’t seem to close it.

  Was Bennet Cooper asking her . . . on a date?

  No one asked Alvie on dates. Boys didn’t spend time with her unless they needed something fixed or help with schoolwork. Men only looked at her legs if they were disapproving her choice of clothing.

  Bennet shifted the hat behind his back. “That is, only if you’d like. I’m being forward, I know, and I understand if you’d prefer to keep this, well, on a more acquaintance level—”

  “Oh. No. I mean, yes. I mean, yes to the park and no to the acquaintance level.” Her words spilled out like overcooked noodles. “I would really like to go to the park. With you. And the Benz. But not just because of the Benz . . .”

  Bennet laughed. His shoulders relaxed, and the hat reappeared. “Well, that’s a relief. I can stop by at three o’clock?”

  Alvie locked her now-jittery fingers together. “Oh, I have a lesson at three. But I could cancel it—”

  Bennet raised a hand to stop her. “I don’t want to interrupt your studies.”

  “What about your studies?”

  He laughed. “Magician Bailey schedules my studies out a month in advance; I know exactly when I’ll have free time. It’s mostly review right now.”

  “Oh! Because you’re testing soon!”

  “Or so I hope.” He smiled. “How about we make it an evening venture. Six?”

  A grin pulled on Alvie’s lips. “Yes. That sounds perfect.”

  Bennet put his cap back on. “Do you still want a ride?”

  “Oh yes!” She scrambled for the automobile. It was wide enough for two in the front and had a second set of seats in the back. She itched for the driver’s seat, but perhaps it was better—and politer—to let Bennet demonstrate first.

  He cranked the automobile and released the brake before getting in, then pulled levers and pushed pedals to start the engine. Alvie imagined all the parts working together, the oil and fuel pumping through, the carburetor mixing in the . . .

  The . . .

  That was it. A pump. Air or liquid, but it would move the fingers, wo
uldn’t it? Was there a spell that would work like a pump, or a carburetor, to add function to the prosthesis? Make it more like a real hand?

  “Here we—”

  “Wait!”

  Bennet pushed down the brake pedal and looked at her.

  “I just had a wild idea!” She leapt up from the seat. “I have to go!”

  “But—”

  “It’s for Ethel! I believe I know how to make her hand work! Tomorrow at six, yes?”

  His features softened. “Yes. And you’ll have to tell me what’s got you so excited.”

  “I will. I will. But I have to figure it out . . . diagram, but Magician Praff—”

  He chuckled. “Go, Alvie.”

  She waved her thanks with both hands and leapt from the automobile, running through the main hall toward the polymery. She needed to research her idea before presenting it to Mg. Praff . . . but if it could work, they would be one big step closer to helping Ethel.

  And that much closer to prevailing at the Discovery Convention.

  CHAPTER 7

  ALVIE PRESSED A RULER against the parchment on her desk the next morning, slowly tracing its edge with the point of her pencil. Such was her concentration on that line that when Mg. Praff knocked on the door, Alvie jumped and nearly rammed the pencil butt right into her eye. Fortunately, her Polymade glasses protected her from anything more than a smudge.

  “Alvie?” the magician called, cracking the door open. “We had a lesson scheduled for ten thirty . . . What on earth are you up to in here?”

  Straightening in her chair—her back popping once in protest—Alvie tried to see her workroom through Mg. Praff’s eyes. The overflowing waste bin and crumpled paper littering the floor, the pencil shavings dusting the counter between uncapped pens, the left hand of the skeleton that she may or may not have wrenched from its display late last night.

  “Um.” She wiped her sleeve over the smudge on her glasses. “Is it past ten thirty?”

  “It’s eleven . . .” Mg. Praff stepped into the workroom. A balled-up piece of paper crunched under his foot. He picked it up. “What is all of this?”

  Alvie smiled. She couldn’t help it. “I’ve discovered a missing piece of the puzzle, sir. It’s the carburetor.”

  “The what?”

  She turned back to her drawing, frowning at the slipped mark of her pencil. Lining up the ruler, she finished her line, then made two more. Mg. Praff waited by the door. Finished, she handed the not-quite-complete sketch to him. “I was looking at the engine of an automobile yesterday. A Benz! That Bennet Cooper who came to see me—did I mention he’s Ethel’s brother? Also a Folder. Or, almost. Anyway, he came by in a Benz and let me look at it, and it’s a fantastic piece of machinery—well kept, pure—”

  “Alvie.”

  “Oh. Uh, but I saw the carburetor, and it gave me an idea. You know how carburetors work, don’t you, Magician Praff?”

  His eyes lit up. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He studied Alvie’s sketch again.

  “What if we could use the same principles in this prosthesis? I’m trying to draw hollow chambers, like straws, that run up the forearm and into the fingers, though I’m not sure how to best implement them in the knuckles. I wanted to figure that out first. But if we could use pressurized liquid or air—”

  “To open and close the fingers,” Mg. Praff finished for her. He rubbed his chin. “That . . . yes, that would be something, wouldn’t it? But to create a motor like that, so small . . . and we couldn’t connect it to the nerves of the arm. Such a feat is beyond magic and technology. But perhaps there’s a way around it. Perhaps we could pressurize liquid polyethylene. An enchantment . . . this requires a great deal of experimentation!”

  Alvie jumped from her chair. “You think it might work?”

  “I think we’ll need lunch brought to the polymery.” The Polymaker grinned. “I ought to send that Magician Jefferson a bouquet of roses for delivering you here, Alvie. You’re exactly the spark this place needs!”

  Alvie warmed. “Th-Thank you, sir.” Thoughts of lunch naturally led to thoughts of dinner, which sent her heart fluttering. Tonight was her picnic with Bennet. She still couldn’t fathom it. A man—and a man as stunning and kind as Bennet Cooper—wanted to spend time with her. It was a date, wasn’t it? What if she was mistaken? But how could one mistake an invitation to a picnic?

  Should she wear a skirt?

  Mg. Praff had said something to her that she missed and left the room. Alvie was grateful for his excitement and the opportunity to explore this new path toward an operational prosthesis. It kept her mind off things she couldn’t quite understand—or might not dare to believe.

  Alvie came to the lab, where Mg. Praff was going through drawers. He lifted a sack full of pale plastic beads, which he dumped onto the island counter. Several fell to the floor, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m going to show you some shaping techniques, Alvie. Very similar to vacuum-forming. Melt, Soften—no, I didn’t mean you!” A bead had melted in his hands, thinking the command for itself. Mg. Praff ordered it to harden again and tossed it into the sink in the corner of the lab.

  Taking one of the model skeletal hands he’d been creating over the last week, the Polymaker made several measurements and then constructed a tube that would fit within the confines of an average adult hand. It looked something like a very skinny test tube with a flat bottom. Alvie watched, mesmerized. She’d never seen Mg. Praff work so quickly before. Would she be able to move like that in years to come? To craft and bend plastic the way he did, without a second thought, without checking her notes? He used some commands she didn’t understand. She itched to learn them.

  “Unyielding,” Mg. Praff said to the long, narrow cylinder. He looked at Alvie. “That will keep this mold from heeding the commands you give to the plastic you work around it. Think of it as a spell to make a mold incredibly stubborn. Only a Yield command, said while moving your fingers along the shape, will break that spell.”

  Alvie nodded, repeating the instruction three times in her head; she hadn’t brought her notebook with her and didn’t wish to slow Mg. Praff’s work.

  Mg. Praff went on to show her how to form the plastic to the mold, creating a long, thin straw. Thinness was important, but the shapes couldn’t be too thin, either. They would determine the exact measurements later. A Flex spell made the finished product malleable without softening the plastic.

  “Make these. Make many of these. I’ll work on creating a hollow version of this.” He held up the model arm and hand.

  “Yes, sir!” Alvie pulled her chair up and got to work. She botched her first attempt, but her second was usable, and her third and fourth better than that. She got a little quicker with each one. A good thing, as Mg. Praff frequently grabbed a straw from her pile and used it with the plastic fingers he was molding, often cursing under his breath before discarding the thing and grabbing another. He seemed to utter only English curses, and thus Alvie didn’t mind the language at all. She still didn’t quite grasp why it was so awful for something to be bloody.

  Lunch was served in the polymery by Mr. Hemsley, who was mostly ignored by both Alvie and her mentor. The food itself went untouched until the bread for the sandwiches was nearly stale, and then Alvie or Mg. Praff would take a bite between measurements and melting. Alvie moved from making straws to studying A Glossary of Polymaking Spells through 1904, hoping that perhaps she’d find something useful. She did write down a few potential spells, one of which she then heard Mg. Praff utter under his breath. She crossed it off her list.

  “Aha! Alvie, come wear this. Quickly.”

  Alvie hurried to her mentor’s side, only to have him shove a rounded, hollow forearm and hand over her own. He positioned her fingers with her thumb, forefinger, and middle finger straight, and her ring and pinky fingers curled in. She held the position for a very long time while he molded the plastic around her. Then he pulled the thing off and stuck it full of straws. Alvie hurried back t
o the cylinder mold to make more. Watching Mg. Praff work, she started adding rivets along the straws. They were flexible, yes, but this would allow them to bend more without cutting off the flow. Mg. Praff must have approved, for when he started using them, he didn’t complain.

  “Pressure. Pressurize. Push. Hmmmm.” The Polymaker had a beaker full of melted plastic and a syringe he used to push it through the straws. “There’s got to be a spell here we’re not finding. Alvie, go upstairs and find me a thesaurus!”

  “Yes, sir!” Alvie hurried out of the lab and made her way up to the library, which she had become well acquainted with over nearly a month of training. She found a thesaurus on the far wall and hurried back down to the lab, only to see Mr. Hemsley walking in with another tray of food.

  Alvie froze halfway down the stairs. Her eyes shot to one of the plastic domed windows. “Hemsley!” she cried, racing down the stairs. “Hemsley, what time is it?”

  Hemsley sighed. “When I left the kitchen, I believe it was five minutes to seven.”

  Alvie felt all the pigment drain out of her body. She rushed over to the butler and grabbed his sleeve, nearly toppling over the dinner tray. “Bennet! Did Bennet come? Is he here? He was supposed to be—”

  “Miss Brechenmacher.” Her name was sharp and hard on Mr. Hemsley’s lips. He jerked his arm free of her grasp. “I came to the lab over an hour ago to announce your guest, and you ignored me.” He sniffed. “Both of you did, so I returned to my usual routine.”

  Now Alvie’s stomach plummeted to the floor. “Y-You did? I didn’t hear . . .”

  “No, you didn’t. You’re quite good at ignoring the spoken word. If you’ll excuse me, it’s my duty to see that Magician Praff does not starve.” He pushed by her, taking his tray to the lab.

  Alvie was still as a church on Monday for a long moment. Then, dropping the thesaurus, she ran from the polymery.

  The cool evening air swirled around her as she bolted down the path, making a mess of her hair. She burst into the house, startling a maid, and cut through the music room, the main hall, the vestibule. She stumbled down the front steps to the drive, the brilliant colors of a sunset greeting her.